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by RisuMezzo (RisuAlto)



Category: Speaker (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Carrying, Developing Relationship, Drama, Exhaustion, Hurt/Comfort, LI M COWLES TAKE BETTER CARE OF YOURSELF CHALLENGE, Li's gender is not specified, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Speaker's gender is not specified, Trust, to steal a tag from the author's blog:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28990818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisuAlto/pseuds/RisuMezzo
Summary: It's not that Li is unaware of the fact that overexerting magic can hurt casters; it's that Li doesn'tcare.  Li's friends have Thoughts.A micro-story (3-10 sentences) based onthis prompt list.
Relationships: Speaker/Liam "Li" Cowles/Sebastian Wynric, Speaker/Lily "Li" Cowles/Sebastian Wynric
Kudos: 1





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**Author's Note:**

> For anonymous.
> 
> Originally posted on tumblr.
> 
> This was…honestly going to be a lot more dramatic, but then I felt a little bad because I couldn’t fix it in 10 sentences, so I relaxed the angst.

You’d thought that maybe…well, you didn’t know exactly, whether it was that you thought Li would have grown more careful with age or that you thought maybe it wouldn’t be so painful–wouldn’t make your chest twist like a wet towel–now that you had both grown up and apart. But you see the signs (shallow breath, hands falling slack to the side, rapid blinking, loss of balance, skin suddenly so pale it looks like paper ready to tear) and you know you’ve just been avoiding the unfortunate truth: Li hasn’t changed a bit.

And you still feel the same choking worry tinged with exasperation when you see Li collapse, so of course you’re _there_ , tucking the frail body against your chest, as soon as it happens. So is Sebastian, which surprises you in a way and yet not at all. He reaches out, fingers brushing your hands as his arms slide under Li beside yours.

“We have to go,” he says, and you know he’s right, that even though Li is light, Sebastian can carry the weight without slowing down at all, unlike you, and–

And it’s not as hard as you thought, releasing Li into Sebastian’s arms instead of yours, when the worry you saw in his green eyes had you convinced for a second that you were looking into a mirror. Maybe he can help you yell at Li later, too, though you have your doubts it’ll ever get through the witch’s head how much this scares you.

But you can hope.


End file.
